Toronto Raptors left sucking wind in Denver

One of Dwane Casey’s favourite colloquialisms is “We were running in mud out there.”

If he did not utter those words at least once through that tough-to-stomach first quarter we would be very, very surprised.

Casey though was in no mood for any informalities. He was too upset by what he saw in what is easily the lowpoint of the Raptors’ season to date, a 129-111 thrashing by the Nuggets.

“It was an embarrassing performance, by all of us,” Casey said. “From coaches to players, it was embarrassing. You come in and the one thing we said is, “You got to come in here and compete and play hard, play a physical game.’ We didn’t do (that) on either end of the floor. We played soft offence, we played soft defence. We’r egoing to see the same thing come the Utah game. Just because you beat a team in this league as good as Portland the other night … as good as we were the other night was as bad as we were tonight.”

Casey though was just getting warmed up.

“Our compete level was low, starting with our starting unit, and then our second unit came in with not the usual energy they come in with,” Casey said. “I’m going to give them a mulligan because they have done it each night but yet and still, it starts with our starters. They’ve got to come in and compete at a high level and, again, you set the tone because if you don’t teams like this are just going to come in and jump on you because you’ve got a target on your back.”

The Raptors looked completely out of sorts in this one from the tip. It got a little better in the second, the only quarter the Raptors actually won with the result still in question, but went right back in the dumper in the third in one of those beatdowns that tend to leave a mark.

The same team that held a high-scoring Portland squad to a total of six points in the second quarter just two nights previously, gave up a season-high for an opponent 34 in the first to put themselves in a hole from which they never did recover.

Paul Millsap picked Game 8 of his tenure in Nuggets colours to feel fully comfortable and the Raptors were on the unlucky receiving end of that decision.

Millsap had 19 in the first half to put the Nuggets on their way and then wasn’t really needed much after that finishing with 20.

Nuggets head coach Michael Malone, in an interview before the game, was saying he liked the way Millsap was finding his niche in Denver’s offence so this wasn’t a total surprise.

Millsap had his Nuggets high for points in that first half alone with that 19.

The Nuggets went a ridiculous 16-for-32 from three-point land so it’s pretty much a given the Raptors will be focusing on running teams off the three-point line a little more frequently in the coming days.

Canadian Jamal Murray led all Denver scorers in this one with 24 after a bit of a rough start to the game.

Murray dove into the second row trying to save an errant pass and landed hard enough that he had to catch his breath in the seats before returning and then paid a visit to the team locker room while the game continued.

Murray returned for the second half and promptly put up 16 on the Raps in the quarter to further salt this one away.

If there is an upside to his one, it is that it was over so early that Casey got his starters plenty of rest with none of them touching the floor in the fourth. Kyle Lowry wound up playing 25 minutes and had nine points and four assists. DeMar DeRozan had 10 points in his 26 minutes.

Casey, as he suggested he would do earlier in the day, expanded his rotation to 12 players, well beyond his comfort zone but something he felt he had to do to fight the altitude issue here in the Mile High City.

With the game out of reach in the fourth he emptied the bench completely getting Alfonzo McKinnie his first substantial minutes as a Raptor.

The hope with the expanded rotation was to keep players fresh and while it might have accomplished that it likely also led to a lack of rhythm. Certainly no one would argue that the Raptors were in any sort of rhythm for any extended period of time last night.

Jakob Poeltl and O.G. Anunoby were the most affected by the expanded rotation playing just three and five minutes respectively in the first half, well down from what they had been getting.

No one outside of Norm Powell shot the ball particularly well. Powell finished with a game-high 14 points on 6-of-11 shooting which tells you all you need to know about Toronto’s offence.

For the final quarter all that was left was for the Raptors to save a little face, if such a thing is possible in a game in which you gave up over 100 points in three quarters of play.

The Raptors went into the fourth trailing 103-71 thanks to a 43-point third quarter by the Nuggets. Somehow that is not the worst third quarter the Raptors have ever experienced defensively. The Phoenix Suns put 46 on the Raps in the third quarter of a game on Jan. 30, 2005. The Raps lost that one 123-105 with a face-saving fourth quarter in which they out-scored the Suns 33-19.

The Raptors will have a practice in Salt Lake City tomorrow to work out some of the kinks before they take the floor again on Friday against the Jazz.

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